


A Life I Might've Known

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, M/M, No really - angst, Permanent Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-11-30 00:48:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was very easy for Grantaire to imagine what he would do if Enjolras were ever to die; all he lived for was Enjolras, and if the blond Greek god-incarnate were to go back to Olympus, he would do everything in his power to follow him there.</p>
<p>He could never have prepared for what happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Life I Might've Known

**Author's Note:**

> So I sat down to write the next chapter in my other fic and this happened instead. I'm sorry.
> 
> I don't own them and never will; the only thing I own are my mistakes.

It was very easy for Grantaire to imagine what he would do if Enjolras were ever to die. Three or four bottles of vodka ought to do it, especially when coupled with a handful of sleeping pills. He would have to do it somewhere hidden, where Combeferre or Joly or anyone who would know how to reverse it wouldn’t be able to find him, at least not in time. They wouldn’t understand; they would tell him that he had so much to live for still. They wouldn’t understand that he didn’t; all he lived for was Enjolras, and if the blond Greek god-incarnate were to go back to Olympus, he would do everything in his power to follow him there.

Enjolras would have narrowed his eyes and taken Grantaire to task for thinking that way. They had been dating now for almost a year, and Enjolras still couldn’t wrap his head around the way Grantaire loved him, the level of adulation he had for him. But if Enjolras were dead, he would hardly be able to argue with or stop Grantaire.

Which was why, when Grantaire had gotten the text message, when Enjolras had not come home from the protest that he attended that day, Grantaire set three bottles of vodka on the kitchen table, waiting to hear more from Courfeyrac. All the text had read was “Hospital”. It was the shorthand they had agreed upon what seemed like ages ago, a simple text message to prepare Grantaire for the worst.

He could never have prepared for what happened.

It was Combeferre who called him, which tipped him off to the fact that this was not what he thought it was. He answered the call with trembling fingers. Combeferre’s voice was laced with tears. “Grantaire, you have to get the hospital, right now. He…he…” He was crying too hard to get the words out.

Perhaps against his better judgment, Grantaire abandoned his vodka, instead rushing to the hospital, as he perhaps should have from the start. There he was met with a stream of doctors and technical terms that he couldn’t even pretend to understand. He wanted Joly or Combeferre to explain this to him, in words he could actually understand, but neither man seemed capable of explaining it to him without breaking down.

Finally, it was Jehan who managed it. Of course it would be; even in situations like this, the poet of the group was the most able to use language. “He was beaten at the protest. He got hit in the head. Had his skull almost bashed in. No one’s quite sure with what, but…He’s…he’s got brain damage, ‘Taire. Badly. There’s nothing they can do to…to reverse it.”

“Brain damage,” Grantaire repeated, feeling suddenly numb. “What…what does that mean, exactly?”

More medical terms were tossed at him, but this time Grantaire was able to catch some phrases: “functionally retarded”; “child-like”; “severe cognitive impairment”. He was able to process them on some level, but on the other, his mind rebelled against the idea. These terms could not apply to _Enjolras_ , for Christ’s sake; Enjolras was a genius, so smart and witty and perfect.

Abruptly, Grantaire stood up. “I want to see him,” he announced loudly.

Combeferre spoke for the first time since Grantaire’s arrival, his voice sounding completely alien. “There’s nothing to see,” he muttered, his voice almost bitter. “Don’t you understand? That’s not Enjolras. Not anymore.”

“I have to see him.” Grantaire could not explain that he had to see for himself if he was to believe it on some level. No one else tried to stop him.

Grantaire knocked quietly on the door, his heart racing to see the man in the hospital bed. A white bandage was wrapped around Enjolras’s head, which for the moment was the only thing that looked out of place. Then Enjolras frowned slightly. “Are you another doctor?” he asked in a small voice.

In that moment, any hope that Grantaire had of this being a monumental mistake was lost. Enjolras had never once sounded like that in the entire time Grantaire had known him. He truly sounded like a little kid, a clear naïveté in his voice that sounded so out of place there.

Grantaire pasted what he hoped approximated a smile onto his face and stepped into the room. “No, I’m not a doctor,” he said reassuringly. “I’m…I’m your friend, Enjolras. I know you may not remember me at the moment, but we’ve been friends for a long time. My name is Grantaire.”

“Grantaire,” repeated Enjolras obediently. He smiled. “You have a weird name.” Enjolras’s smile was too bright, too wide, too innocent. Grantaire looked at the lips that he had kissed hundreds of times stretched into that child’s grin and wanted to weep more than ever. But he couldn’t do that; he had to be strong.

Instead, he cleared his throat, returning Enjolras’s smile with one of his own. “You have a pretty weird name yourself.” He leaned in and winked conspiratorially. “But you know what? Sometimes, I let my really good friends call me ‘Taire.”

Enjolras looked up at him shyly, and Grantaire’s breath caught in his throat. When was Enjolras ever shy? Even as an actual child, Grantaire could not imagine Enjolras being shy. “Can I call you ‘Taire?” he asked.

“Of course,” Grantaire responded instantly.

Enjolras grinned again, glad to be considered one of 'Taire's really good friends.

Grantaire went home that night and cried himself to sleep, wrapped in Enjolras’s sweatshirt, clinging to the other man’s scent like a lifeline.

The next morning, he poured all the vodka down the sink. At the hospital, he stopped by the gift shop before going up to Enjolras’s room. He bought him a stuffed dog, and promised that when Enjolras was well enough to get out of the hospital, they’ll look into getting a real puppy.

He didn’t ask for permission to take Enjolras home, and thankfully, no one tried to fight him, no one but Combeferre, who argued that Grantaire couldn’t take care of a child. Grantaire met his eyes with a quiet determination. “Maybe not. But I can take care of Enjolras.”

When Enjolras and Grantaire got home, Enjolras was acting shy again, clearly with no memory of their apartment together. He looked around with wide eyes as Grantaire showed him where everything was. Grantaire had turned the guest room into Enjolras’s bedroom, with a new bed made up with brightly colored sheets. He had even painted some friendly dinosaurs on the wall to brighten it up. Enjolras liked that.

That night, Grantaire cried again, silent sobs that had him shaking in his – and now only his – bed. He wept for the life that he and Enjolras had had together, the life they should have had, the life that Enjolras now could not remember, the life that they would never know.

The next morning, the crying has stopped, replaced by a burning resolve. They could build a new life together.

The group grew apart; how could they not? Enjolras was the guiding light of the group, and his light was almost extinguished. Combeferre couldn’t stand seeing him like this, and it upset Enjolras when Combeferre cried. Joly and Bossuet stopped visiting after about a year; Bahorel and Fueilly not too long after that. When Courfeyrac and Jehan broke up, Jehan stopped coming by; it was only Courfeyrac in the end, which perhaps made the most sense. Courfeyrac had the patience of a saint and an almost childlike disposition of his own, which made him the perfect companion for Enjolras for the few hours when he could manage it.

Mostly, though, it was just Grantaire and Enjolras.

The others didn’t know what to say, what to do. They didn’t understand this even more than they wouldn’t have understood Grantaire’s suicide. More than once Courfeyrac had suggested softly that Grantaire look into an institution, some place that could take care of Enjolras. “You can still visit,” he had said, almost whispering. “But Grantaire, you can’t keep living like this.”

They were wrong. Grantaire could. His days were immeasurably different now; he had substituted milk for alcohol and for the lingering reek of pot on his clothes, the smell of peanut butter. He worked harder than he had ever, holding down two separate jobs to make ends meet. Instead of mid-afternoon fucks, he had to beg off from work for mid-afternoon temper tantrums that could only be solved by watching the Lion King for the hundredth time.

It was almost ironic that it had taken this to make Grantaire turn into the man that Enjolras had always wanted him to be, when Enjolras would never again be the man that Grantaire saw in his dreams.

But it was still worth it, in the most bizarre way possible, when he comes home from work, exhausted, to find an ecstatic, bouncing Enjolras wanting to show him the fifty different pictures he colored for him while he was gone. Worth it when Enjolras pressed a sticky hand into Grantaire’s. Worth it when Enjolras comes and sleeps in Grantaire’s bed because he’s had a nightmare. Worth it that Enjolras was finally looking at Grantaire with the same life-consuming love that Grantaire feels for him.

Worth it, worth it, worth it.

Enjolras had always been Grantaire’s life. It was just a very different life now, made up of bedtime stories and convincing Enjolras to take his bath, of tickle fights and Disney movies and toys wrapped up under the Christmas tree. And every time Enjolras gave him a clumsy goodnight kiss, accompanied by a quiet, “Love you, ‘Taire,” Grantaire just closed his eyes and thanked whatever power there was that he still had the blond-haired man in any form.

The others never understood, as the months passed and turned into years, as the years stretched into decades. But they didn’t have to. Only Grantaire needed to understand, and he did.

Enjolras was his life. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [And I Swear I Will Be True](https://archiveofourown.org/works/987304) by [kjack89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89)




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